1662. and raised compassion: whereas the old clergy, now much enriched, were as much despised. But the young clergy that came from the universities did good service. Learning was then high at Oxford; chiefly the study of the oriental tongues, which was much raised by the Polyglot bible, then lately set forth. They read the fathers much there. Mathematics and the new philosophy were in great esteem. And the meetings that Wilkins had begun at Oxford were now held in London too, in so public manner, that the king himself encouraged them much, and had many experiments made before him. The royal society. The men that formed the royal society in London were, sir Robert Murray, the lord Brounker, a profound mathematician, and doctor Ward, soon after promoted to Exeter, and afterwards removed to Salisbury. Ward was a man of great reach, went deep in mathematical studies, and was a very dexterous man, if not too dexterous; for his sincerity was much questioned. He had complied during the late times, and held in by taking the covenant: so he was hated by the high men as a time-server. But the lord Clarendon saw, that most of the bishops were men of merit by their sufferings, but of no great capacity for business. He brought Ward in, as a man fit to govern the church: for Ward, to get his former errors to be forgot, went into the high notions of a severe conformity, and became the 193 most considerable man on the bishops' bench. He was a profound statesman, but a very indifferent clergyman. Many physicians, and other ingenious men, went into the society for natural philosophy, But he who laboured most, at the greatest charge, and with the most success at experiments, was Ro He 1662. bert Boyle, the earl of Cork's youngest son. tions among After St. Bartholomew's day, the dissenters, see-Consultaing both court and parliament was so much set the papists. against them, had much consultation together what to do. Many were for going over to Holland, and settling there with their ministers. Others proposed New England, and the other plantations. Upon this the earl of Bristol drew to his house a meeting of the chief papists in town: and after an oath of secrecy he told them, now was the proper time for them to make some steps towards the bringing in of their religion: in order to that it seemed advisable for them to take pains to procure 1662. favour to the nonconformists; (for that became the common name to them all, as puritan had been before the war:) they were the rather to bestir themselves to procure a toleration for them in general terms, that they themselves might be comprehended within it. The lord Aubigny seconded the motion. He said, it was so visibly the interest of England to make a great body of the trading men stay within the kingdom, and be made easy in it, that it would have a good grace in them to seem zealous for it: and, to draw in so great a number of those, who had been hitherto the hottest against them, to feel their care, and to see their zeal to serve them; he recommended to them to make this the subject of all their discourses, and to engage all their friends in the design. Bennet did not meet with them, but was known to be of the secret; as the lord Stafford told me in the tower a little before his 194 death. But that lord soon withdrew from those meetings for he apprehended the earl of Bristol's heat, and that he might raise a storm against them by his indiscreet meddling. A declaration for toleration. The king was so far prevailed on by them, that in December 1662 he set out a declaration, that was generally thought to be procured by the lord Bristol but it had a deeper root, and was designed by the king himself. In it the king expressed his aversion to all severities on the account of religion, but more particularly to all sanguinary laws; and gave hopes, both to papists and nonconformists, that he would find out such ways for tempering the severities of the laws, that all his subjects should be easy under them. The wiser of the nonconformists saw at what all this was aimed, and so received it coldly. But the papists went on more warmly, and 1662. were preparing a scheme for a toleration for them. And one part of it raised great disputes among themselves. Some were for their taking the oath of allegiance, which renounced the pope's deposing power. But all those that were under a management from Rome refused this. And the internuncio at Brussels proceeded to censure those that were for it, as enemies to the papal authority. A proposition was also made for having none but secular priests tolerated in England, who should be under a bishop, and under an established government. But that all the regulars, in particular all Jesuits, should be under the strictest penalties forbid the kingdom. for the pa The earl of Clarendon set this on; for he knew Designed well it would divide the papists among themselves. pists. But, though a few honest priests, such as Blacklow, Serjeant, Caron, and Walsh, were for it, yet they could not make a party among the leading men of their own side. It was pretended, that this was set on foot with a design to divide them, and so to break their strength. The earl of Clarendon knew, that cardinal de Retz, for whom he saw the king had a particular esteem, had come over incognito, and had been with the king in private. So, to let the king see how odious a thing his being suspected of popery would be, and what a load it would lay on his government, if it came to be believed, he got some of his party, as sir Allain Brodrick told me, to move in the house of commons for an act rendering it capital to say the king was a papist. And, whereas the king was made to believe that the old cavaliers were become milder with relation to popery, the lord Clarendon upon this new act inferred, 1662. that it still appeared that the opinion of his being a papist would so certainly make him odious, that for that reason the parliament had made the spreading 195 those reports so penal. But this was taken by another handle, while some said, that this act was made on purpose, that, though the design of bringing in popery should become ever so visible, none should dare to speak of it. The earl of Clarendon had a quite contrary design in it, to let the king see how fatal the effects of any such suspicions were like to be. When the earl of Bristol's declaration was proposed in council, lord Clarendon and the bishops opposed it. But there was nothing in it directly against law, hopes being only given of endeavours to make all men easy under the king's government: so it passed. The earl of Bristol carried it as a great victory. And he, with the duke of Buckingham, and all lord Clarendon's enemies, declared openly against him. But the poor priests, who had made those honest motions, were very ill looked on by all their own party, as men gained on design to betray them. I knew all this from Peter Walsh himself, who was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them. He was of Irish extraction, and of the Franciscan order: and was indeed in all points of controversy almost wholly protestant: but he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adhering to the church of Rome : and he maintained, that with these he could continue in the communion of that church without sin: and he said, that he was sure he did some good, staying still on that side, but that he could do none at all, if he should come over: he thought, no man ought to forsake that religion in which he was born |